Columbian Gummed Seal Business Envelope – Envelopes Bear the Weightiest of Messages

Envelopes are the holders of love letters, notices of inheritance, birthday cards and beautiful pictures of families at Christmas time.

Too usual, I thought, when one was delivered into my life. Insipidly white, without so much as the adorning blue speckled lining used when mailing things of discretion, these pretended to portend nothing more than a letter. All my uncles were either poor or healthy, and none were with the kind of fondness required to entreat me to riches upon their earthly demise.

These simple #10 envelopes carry the most ordinary contents. Mine, the one sent to me, carried one piece of paper, a news clipping. A friend from years back sent it to me. His address was written in a sharp India ink in the top left corner, with his initials, PS. My name and address was written in blue, slightly to the right of center. There was no note. None was needed. The clipping was curse enough.

The clipping was short. She was married, it said, to an otherwise good man, in early October amidst the autumn colors in a church just south of where I used to live. I don’t remember his name. Hers is emblazoned on my soul.

Why I left that town I cannot say. Why she stayed I never knew. What remains is space between us and in my heart, neither of which can be reduced by returning there. The church I knew well, finding there once the solace of quiet and of God. I have not found such peace since.

Offered here are 100 envelopes. Suitable for office needs, and better used as such than for mailing newspaper clippings of lost loves to old friends who will sit and mumble and muse about how empty the envelope now feels.

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